[tdwg] Species pages and video

Richard Pyle deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Wed Aug 29 23:09:05 CEST 2007


Thanks Tim,

> One possible solution to the 1080 issue will be (soon to be 
> released, released?) Flash Player 9, which will support up to 
> 1920 x 1080.  It will not run in full screen mode at this 
> setting unfortunately.
> It will be in H.264 format, as used in MPEG 4.   FLV files 
> are FLV files
> - which may not be the panacea everyone desires but it may 
> allow some of the high-res content to get out in the wild, 
> sooner than later.

Good to know!

> The choice to use Youtube over Google was an easy one.  
> Youtube allows one to embed the video in an html page, Google 
> Video does not.

That's what I used to think also -- but it's not true.  To wit:

http://www2.bishopmuseum.org/testvideo/videotest.htm

Look at the source code, and you'll see how simple the embedded link is, and
what you have control over (e.g., size, subtitles, etc).

In fact, it was this feature that sealed the deal for me on Google Video.
Until I realized this, I was looking at YouTube for the very same reason.

> My feeling is that the supplemental information surrounding 
> the video can aid in familiarity for the user.  The more 
> images available to a user trying to make a determination of 
> an unknown taxon, the better. 
> However, Youtube, and Google for that matter, may (read will) 
> switch to an ad based format.  Ads appearing on/in vouchers 
> are not appealing for obvious reasons. 
> Scientific video services are coming into being - Sci-Vee,   for one. 
> Not sure whether they offer an embed feature, have emailed 
> them and will hopefully know shortly.

I agree with all of your points above. Google Video seems less ads-based
than YouTube, so my hope is that for embedded videos, at least, there will
be some reprieve from ads.  In fact, another reason I like Google Video over
YouTube is that I don't like thatlittle YouTube watermark -- which itself is
sort of an ad.  Of course, since they're both owned by Google, I suspect
they will eventually merge.

> Metadata - if anyone can send me a template that I can employ 
> now, even something rudimentary, I will use it and re-post 
> the species pages prior to the conference.  The data are there/here. 

Ditto!

> Latest page with all recommended improvements so far-
> 
> http://utc.usu.edu/factsheets/CarexFSF/new/carex_oligosperma_species.htm

Very nice!  You might consider caching lower-resolution copies of the JPEGs
(e.g., Habitat and Infructescence) for faster display.  This is another
topic I've wanted to learn more about and ask others how they deal with it.
I've not quite graduated to the point where I can create on-the-fly resized
images (JPEG2K sounds promising, though!), so I cache copies of each JPEG in
5 sizes: 50px, 150px, 300px, 800px, Full-res (all numbers indicate image
width).  That allows me to deliver fast tiled pages like this:

http://www2.bishopmuseum.org/natscidb2/?w=BPBM&s0=Centropyge&lst=i

Or pages with intermediate-size images like this:

http://www2.bishopmuseum.org/natscidb2/?w=BPBM&id=-1513740931

Or pop-ups with larger images (click the image in the above link):

Actually, the second link isn't quite right -- it goes to the large image:
http://www2.bishopmuseum.org/PBS/images/JER/large/1306009233.jpg

It should get this copy:
http://www2.bishopmuseum.org/PBS/images/JER/small/1306009233.jpg

Obviously, it would be better to scale the images on the fly, like Bob
described for JPEG2K.

But anyway, that's a whole 'nother conversation.

Aloha,
Rich

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Database Coordinator for Natural Sciences
  and Associate Zoologist in Ichthyology
Department of Natural Sciences, Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817
Ph: (808)848-4115, Fax: (808)847-8252
email: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html





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